{"id":18236,"date":"2026-05-06T21:26:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T21:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/18236\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T21:26:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T21:26:42","slug":"atletico-played-against-uefa-not-arsenal-says-mad-madrid-mayor-in-228-word-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/18236\/","title":{"rendered":"Atletico ‘played against UEFA’ not Arsenal says mad Madrid mayor in 228-word rant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe got to play against UEFA\u201d said Madrid mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida in a stunning 228-word rant after Arsenal\u2019s Champions League semi-final win over Atletico Madrid to expose both him as a one-eyed football tribalist and a notable difference in Spanish and British politics.<\/p>\n

Bukayo Saka\u2019s goal was enough to send Arsenal through to the final<\/a> in the second leg after 1-1 draw in the Wanda Metropolitano and despite his typical touchline antics, renowned firebrand Diego Simeone said he felt \u201cpeaceful\u201d after his side were beaten as the Gunners \u201cdeserved to get through\u201d.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Celebration Police get a kicking as Arsenal reach CL final and supercomputer support rolls in<\/a><\/p>\n

Martinez-Almeida \u2013 an Atletico Madrid fan; evidently a diehard one \u2013 was less serene, insisting the decision to appoint a German referee was \u201cincomprehensible\u201d and that UEFA made a \u201cpredetermined decision aimed at harming\u201d his beloved team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell look, what I\u2019m saying is that when I saw the draw I thought we\u2019d get Arsenal and I was wrong,\u201d he began. \u201cWe got to play against UEFA. And UEFA has made it clear that they didn\u2019t want Atletico Madrid in the Champions League final.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incomprehensible that they appointed a German referee when Spain and Germany are playing for the fifth Champions League spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho, other than UEFA, would think of appointing a German referee as both the main referee and the VAR referee?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yesterday there were plays that weren\u2019t due to the referee being more or less bad, but in my opinion, due to a predetermined decision aimed at harming Atletico Madrid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atletico has several penalty appeals turned down at the Emirates. The first saw Riccardo Calafiori pushing Giuliano Simeone in the box, but the linesman has already flagged for offside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incomprehensible that there isn\u2019t a single replay of Giuliano\u2019s offside when it was a clear penalty,\u201d Martinez-Almeida said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe later saw on social media that it wasn\u2019t offside and that he left his own half. In a match broadcast by so many television cameras, why didn\u2019t the production team show a replay to determine whether it was offside or not? Because it wasn\u2019t offside, and they refused to admit it.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Gyokeres and club-record signing among five big-money players who have whelmed the most this season<\/a><\/p>\n

The mayor was also very upset when Atletico weren\u2019t awarded a spot kick when Calafiori stepped on Antoine Griezmann\u2019s foot as Marc Pubill was adjudged to have fouled Gabriel beforehand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s blatant, the referee blows his whistle once Griezmann falls, Pubill\u2019s foul doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd then the added time is clear proof that the referee wanted the match to end as quickly as possible and for Arsenal to go to Budapest instead of Atletico Madrid.\u201d<\/p>\n

An astonishing rant from the actual mayor of Madrid after a football game. The equivalent would be Arsenal-supporting Prime Minister Keir Starmer donning his tin-foil hat and launching into a scathing diatribe on supposed UEFA corruption after Eberechi Eze\u2019s penalty was overturned last week.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Almeida was awfully quiet after that particular controversy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe got to play against UEFA\u201d said Madrid mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida in a stunning 228-word rant after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[366,10101,1707,82,273],"class_list":{"0":"post-18236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-madrid","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-f365-says","10":"tag-front-page","11":"tag-madrid","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}